For Kids: A touching look at OCD and teen love

Bernie Goedhart, THE GAZETTE11.30.2013

Cover illustration for Teresa Toten’s YA novel, The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B, published by Doubleday Canada and winner of this year’s Governor General’s Award for children’s literature text in English.

Just as few of us can claim perfect health (who hasn’t had a cold or suffered with the flu?), most of us have dealt with occasional glitches in our mental health — including the odd bout of compulsive behaviour. Doublechecking the door to make sure we’ve locked it, for example, or going back inside to ensure that the stove is off, the iron unplugged, and so on. Even when we’re sure we’ve already done so.

But living with a full-blown obsessive compulsive disorder is something entirely different, and those of us lucky enough not to be afflicted with it can barely imagine what incredible difficulties OCD sufferers face on a daily basis. Author Teresa Toten, however, can. In a Q&A segment at the end of her Governor General’s Award-winning young adult novel, The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B, she admits to knowing “quite a few young people and adults who have OCD” and finding their courage in dealing with the disorder “both breathtaking and fascinating.” She used those real-life acquaintances to build her characters in this novel about a group of young people who meet as part of their OCD group therapy and who, unwittingly perhaps, end up aiding in each other’s recovery.

In the process, Toten spins an equally compelling — and occasionally humorous — story about the difficulties ALL adolescents face in getting to know themselves and how they fit in society, not to mention how to find kindred spirits and learn to trust. First love also factors into the story, and by the time the book comes to a close, readers will have thoroughly bonded with all the characters — but especially with the titular hero, 14-year-old Adam Spencer Ross.

Not only does this young man have to deal with OCD (his symptoms include a compulsive need to count, a belief that certain numbers will keep his loved ones safe while others are evil, and a growing problem with threshold rituals), but he also has to contend with divorced parents and an extremely loving but needy stepbrother.

Adam lives with his mother most of the time, but she has severe mental problems herself — problems she won’t acknowledge and manages to hide when she’s at work (ironically enough, she’s a nurse), but which exhibit themselves in various ways at home, most obviously in her tendency to hoard. Meanwhile, he has to come to terms with the fact that Robyn, a member of Group with whom he has fallen in love, is regaining her mental health while his is plummeting. Realizing that he impedes her recovery, Adam’s pain is palpable.

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